


The Colony of Purrbeasts

by Rogue of Heart (Akumeoi)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Crack, F/M, Fairy Tale Retellings, Fairy Tale Style, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-14
Updated: 2013-05-14
Packaged: 2018-10-18 13:26:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10617828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akumeoi/pseuds/Rogue%20of%20Heart
Summary: A crack retelling of Andrew Lang's "A Colony of Cats". Nepeta is a sweet orphan who lives with her step-mother and her evil sister Vriska, but her whole life changes when she goes to work at the house of a colony of sentient cats.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is an old Alternian legend...
> 
> I didn't actually change the original all that much, mostly just the names and a lot of the first part is re-written for brevity. I think I may also have borrowed the grand advisier Karkat thing from Be The Seadweller Lowblood. (This fic is an import from my old DeviantART).

Once upon a time, there lived a community of purrbeasts in a deserted hive near a large town. They had there everything a purrbeast could ever want: food, milk, toys, comfy sofas and sunny porches, and if by any chance an unlucky squeakbeast was stupid enough to go within ten miles of the place, they caught it, not to eat it, but for fun. No one knows where they got the boonbucks to pay for everything, nor who gave it to them, but one thing is for certain: they were rich enough to keep a servant.

Being cats, they preferred to play than work, so they engaged cleaners, petters and tummy-scratchers, and above all, cooks. Many poor women in the town had, at one point said, ‘I will go and live with the purrbeasts," but most of them got bored or lonely pretty fast, so they didn't last very long.

Now Nepeta was not happy at home, because her mother, Scratch-etta, liked her older daughter, Vriska, much better than her; so Vriska got the best of everything and if Nepeta dared to complain she was certain to have a good beating.

At last the day came when she was at the end of her courage and patience, so she said to them, ‘I can't bear living in this pawful house any more, and I'm going to live with the purrbeasts!’

‘Be off with you!’ cried Scratch-etta, seizing an old broom-handle from behind the door. Poor Nepeta did not wait to be told twice, but ran all the way to the purrbeasts' house. The last servant they had had been kicked out that morning for burning the soup one too many times, so the cats were very glad to have her.

While she was working, a constant succession of purrbeasts appeared in the kitchen to inspect her cooking. One twined itself against her ankles, one sat on the back of her chair while she peeled the vegetables, two or three sat on a sunny patch on the table, and a few more climbed around on the shelves, clanking the pots and pans together. Of course, Nepeta scratched the ears of any purrbeast within petting distance. The air resounded with their purring, which meant they were all very pleased.

As she was a good, hard-working, kind-hearted girl, she did everything she could to keep the purrbeasts happy. She played with the little kittens which tumbled about on the floor, she patched up quarrels, and she pulled thorns out of paws. Needless to say, the purrbeasts loved her, just as she loved them. Never had the hive been kept so clean, the meat so well served, nor the sick purrbeasts so well cared for. 

Every once in a while an old purrbeast, the noble Pounce de Leijon, who had two mouths and lived by himself in a cave on the other side of the hill, came to visit the little colony. He also liked Nepeta, and always made sure to talk to her and make sure she was happy. At first she always seemed to be as pleased with her home as the purrbeasts were with her, but after a time, Sir Pounce, who was very observant, noticed that she was beginning to look sadder and sadder. 

'What's the matter? Has somebody b33n mean to you?' he asked one day.

She sniffed sadly and said: ‘Oh, no! I love them all furry much, but I'm getting a little bit homesick.'

Sir Pounce, being a sensible old purrbeast, understood Nepeta’s feelings. ‘Don't worry, you can go home right away, I purromise,' he said. "But first, I'd like to reward you fur your kindness to all my little kittens. Purrlease come down to the cellar with me.'

Nepeta looked round her in astonishment as they went down into the great vaulted cellar underneath the kitchen. Before her stood two big earthenware water jars, each containing a gold coloured liquid, though one was labelled with the symbol of a fountain, and the other with the symbol of an olive. 

‘In which of these jars shall I dip you?’ asked Sir Pounce, with a grin that showed all his sharp white teeth in both of his mouths, while his moustaches stood out straight on either side of his face. 

‘In the oil jar,’ Nepeta answered, thinking to herself: ‘I could not ask to be bathed in gold.’

But Sir Pounce replied: ‘No, no; you have deserved something better than that.’ And seizing her in his strong paws he plunged her into the liquid gold, which turned out to actually be water from the renowned Fountain of Cute. 

Wonder of wonders! When Nepeta came out of the jar she shone from head to foot like the sun in the heavens on a fine summer’s day. Her pretty green eyes and long black hair kept their natural colour. Otherwise she had become like a statue of pure gold. Sir Pounce purred loudly with satisfaction. 

‘Go home,’ he said, ‘and see your mother and sister; but take care if you hear the goat bray, to look the other way.’

Nepeta danced with joy all the way home, but just as she arrived at Scratch-etta's house the donkey began to bray, so she quickly turned her head away from it, thus narrowly missing being hit in the face with a sopor slime pie. Immediately a beautiful golden star appeared on her forehead, crowning her glossy black hair. 

When she got into the house, her sister punched her in the shoulder, and her mother rubbed her hands together and eyed her forehead. For about three days Scratch-etta and her two daughters lived very happily together, for all the loose change that had been in Nepeta's pockets when she set off that morning had mysteriously turned into gold, which she gave to them. She would have given them the golden clothing and the golden star, but neither of those would come off.

But, rocket-shoes are expensive, and in spite of Nepeta's best efforts, they couldn't scrape together enough for a pair _and_ for food that week. So, her sister, Vriska, took matters into her own hands.

‘I’m going to go see what I can get out of those ridiculous pussies,’ said Vriska, as she took Nepeta’s second-best green coat and filled the pockets with loose pennies. ‘I’d like some of the purr8easts’ gold for myself,’ she thought, as she left Scratch-etta’s house before the sun rose.

The purrbeast colony had not yet taken another servant, for they knew they could never get one to replace Nepeta, who they all missed very deeply. When they heard that Vriska was her sister, they all ran to meet her. ‘She is not the least like her,’ the kittens whispered among themselves.

No, decidedly she was not at all like Nepeta. 

The very first day she shut the kitchen door in the face of the tom-purrbeasts who used to enjoy watching Nepeta at her work, and when a young and mischievous purrbeast jumped in through the open kitchen window, she hit him on the head with her rolling pin and gave him a huge lump the size of a goose-egg. 

With every day that passed the household became more and more aware of its misfortune.

The work was as badly done as the servant was rude and bitchy; there was dust everywhere and the beds were hardly ever made, so that the old and feeble purrbeasts had to resort to asking younger ones to shake the pillows for them as they would have shaken a rat. And worst of all, a plague of spiders had descended upon the house, and Vriska did nothing to remove their omnipresent webs, not caring that purrbeasts were daily being bitten. At Sir Pounce's next visit, he found the whole hive in a state of uproar.

'Vwhiskers stomped on Tavros's paw so badly it looks like it's broken,' said one.

'Hector has an abscess in his back because she threw a chair at him,' another put in.

'Yes, and Agripa's three little kittens have died of hunger beside their mother, beclaws Vwhiskers accidentally locked them in the attic!' cried a third.

'There is simply no putting up with this creature. Purrlease, deliver us! Send her away! Nepeta herself would forgive us; she must know what her sister is like.'

‘Come here,’ said Sir Pounce, in his most severe tones to Vriska. And he took her down into the cellar and showed her the same two great jars that he had showed Nepeta. ‘In which of these shall I dip mew?’ he asked

‘In the liquid gold,’ she said quickly.

Sir Pounce’s yellow eyes darted fire. ‘Mew have not deserved it,’ he uttered, in a voice like thunder, and he flung her into the oil jar, where she was nearly suffocated. When she came to the surface screaming and struggling, the vengeful purrbeast seized her again and rolled her in the ash-heap on the floor. When she rose, dirty, blinded, and disgusting to behold, he thrust her from the door, saying: ‘Begone, and when you m33t a braying donkey be carefur to turn your head towards it.’

Stumbling and raging, Vriska set off for home. She was within sight of Scratch-etta’s house when she heard in the meadow on the right, the voice of a donkey loudly braying. Quickly, she turned her head towards it, and saw that it was braying because a crazed juggalo was approaching from the side. 

“You shall pay for your sins, wicked sister!” he cried, throwing a puff of special stardust at her. She slapped him hard, and when he fell down, she ran home to her mother at the top of her speed, yelling with rage and despair. It took Nepeta two hours with a big basin of hot water and two cakes of soap to get rid of the layer of ashes with which Sir Pounce had adorned her. Horror of horrors, they discovered that the juggalo’s magic fairy dust had caused the makeup of an angry clown to be permanently tattooed to her face.

Scratch-etta was furious. She first beat Nepeta unmercifully with the broom, then dragged her by the hair to the well, which she threw her into.

Before this happened, however, the Grand Advisier Karkat, in passing the mother’s house had seen Nepeta sitting drawing in the parlour, and had been dazzled by her beauty. After a few conversations with her (quietly, so as not to attract the attention of Scratch-etta) he siad to her, ‘HEY, CAT-GIRL, WILL YOU MARRY ME?'

She answered: ‘I will.’

Next morning, when the Grand Advisier arrived to claim his bride, he found her wrapped in a large white veil. ‘It is so that maidens are received from their parents’ hands,’ said Scratch-etta, who hoped to make the king’s son marry Vriska in place of her sister, and had hidden the hideous clown makeup with at least three layers of clothing. The Grand Advisier wasn’t exactly a romantic expert, so he made no objections, and seated Vriska in the carriage beside him.

Their way led past the old hive inhabited by the purrbeasts, who were all at the window, for the report had got about that the Grand Advisier was going to marry the most beautiful troll in the world, and they knew that this could only be their adored Nepeta. As the carriage slowly passed in front of the old house, where purrbeasts from all parts of world seemed to be gathered a song burst from every throat.

_Mew, mew, mew!_  
_Grand Advisier, look quick behind you!_  
_In the well is fair Nepeta,_  
_and you’ve got nothing but Vriska!_

With a turn of his hand the Grand Advisier threw back the veil, and discovered the hideously grinning face of Vriska. ‘I CALL BULLSHIT!’ he exclaimed, and ordered the coachman to turn the carriage around. He drove the elder daughter, quivering with rage, back to Scratch-etta. With his hand on the hilt of his sickle he demanded Nepeta in so terrific a voice that Scratch-etta hastened to the well to draw her prisoner out. Nepeta’s clothing and her star shone so brilliantly that when the Grand Advisier led her home to the king, his father, the whole palace was lit up. Next day they were married, and lived happy ever after; and all the purrbeasts, headed by Sir Pounce, were present at the wedding.


End file.
